I find how the laps are grouped more interesting than how many are completed. You can infer race sim, fuel run out, setup work, aero testing, etc by examining the run data (and you can then check the notes to see if you were right ).

Hamilton is a racing driver. All racing drivers want to get the fastest times and best their team mates. He is no different. He would have wanted the better lap time and the better lap count. It's in his competitive nature.

Doing more laps isn't always a sign that things are going well. It can be indicative that you're hopelessly lost in a sea of setup changes too. Not saying that's the case with Merc or anyone, just that it happens.

When you are working through a program you tend to just concentrate on what the assigned task for each run is, how many laps, what kind of pace you're looking for, what the purpose is, if you are getting the info you want or seeing the results you intended. Then after a bunch of runs in the back of your mind you're going "i did a 13 lap run, then 10, 8, 15, whatever...I must be getting up there in laps," then the same when you get out of the car and have a little stretch or notice that your arms are getting heavy, and that's about it. IME. anyway

Hamilton is a racing driver. All racing drivers want to get the fastest times and best their team mates. He is no different. He would have wanted the better lap time and the better lap count. It's in his competitive nature.

Then that completely misses out the point of testing. Especially at this stage.

I find how the laps are grouped more interesting than how many are completed. You can infer race sim, fuel run out, setup work, aero testing, etc by examining the run data (and you can then check the notes to see if you were right ).

Hamilton is a racing driver. All racing drivers want to get the fastest times and best their team mates. He is no different. He would have wanted the better lap time and the better lap count. It's in his competitive nature.

Then that completely misses out the point of testing. Especially at this stage.

Well given you aren't a part of the Merc team and you don't know what was or wasn't said then it's safe to say you don't know if they did or didn't do that.

As racing drivers their competitive instinct never leaves them, they want to be top whether it's Quali, the race, practice or testing. It's in their blood.

Hamilton is a racing driver. All racing drivers want to get the fastest times and best their team mates. He is no different. He would have wanted the better lap time and the better lap count. It's in his competitive nature.

Then that completely misses out the point of testing. Especially at this stage.

Well given you aren't a part of the Merc team and you don't know what was or wasn't said then it's safe to say you don't know if they did or didn't do that.

As racing drivers their competitive instinct never leaves them, they want to be top whether it's Quali, the race, practice or testing. It's in their blood.

In testing the competitive spirit has to go out the window and do as they are told so the team can gather the data they want.

Otherwise why would they go into Testing with a program? They might as well just fill the tanks and let the drivers battle it out.

Can you see Ross Brawn saying "Right fill him up and send him out with new boots. Never mind the set up change we were going to try Lewis wants to beat Nicos score and we won't have time to change the spring rates and do the laps"

No if they want to change something Lewis would be called in and they would change something and send him back out regardless of how many laps Lewis wanted to do.

If Lewis or any other driver is told to drive to a Delta they won't go out and do quick laps just to go faster than their team mates.

The drivers also know going out to beat someone elses time is meaningless as the cars will have been changed between runs making the time comparison meaningless.

If you look closely I said nothing in my last post about Mercedes telling him anything only that a racing driver's instinct is to go as quickly as possible 100% of the time. Lewis is no different, he would have wanted to go as fast as possible in that Merc today and beat Rosberg's time from yesterday. F1 is as much about psychological advantage in inter team battles these days as speed is. However Mercedes themselves won't care, they just wanted as many laps done as possible to make up for lost time. But if they told Lewis to try and top Rosberg's lap count from yesterday I wouldn't be shocked either.

Why would there be a competitive nature to lap count when the total doesn't mean anything? surely if ever the statement "quality not quantity" were relevant its in this situation. Whatever.

pokerman - I haven't looked at the runs for quickness, mostly just consistency. Of the few I had a good look at yesterday and today: Kimi has had some really impressive stints where his times were extremely close over many laps relative to the others, Lewis' times were mostly "in order" on his more consistent runs, meaning they steadily dropped off versus losing a tenth or two here, then going a bit quicker, then a bit slower again, etc, Seb has been good about not wasting time with a change that doesn't work - straight back in for an adjustment it seems, the STR boys have both enjoyed an improved process for setting up the car meaning they are trying more things and the car is responding (there's an almost regularity to the intervals between runs, and then a nice consistent one before the next big break), and since all three FI drivers have been able to get up to speed in a reasonable window I'd say that car is user friendly. I didn't look hard enough at any others to draw any basic conclusions.

If you look closely I said nothing in my last post about Mercedes telling him anything only that a racing driver's instinct is to go as quickly as possible 100% of the time. Lewis is no different, he would have wanted to go as fast as possible in that Merc today and beat Rosberg's time from yesterday. F1 is as much about psychological advantage in inter team battles these days as speed is. However Mercedes themselves won't care, they just wanted as many laps done as possible to make up for lost time. But if they told Lewis to try and top Rosberg's lap count from yesterday I wouldn't be shocked either.

He maybe would have wanted to as fast as possible. However it's testing and there is no point going as fast as he can if the team is telling him otherwise. If they are looking info on tyre wear over a long run Lewis going out and doing bonzai Quali style laps would be a direct contradiction of what the team is trying to do. If they are trying to do a race sim again Lewis trying to do fast ones and chewing up tyres would again be a direct conflict.

And as it's testing it has absolutely no psychological advantage as both drivers would be on a different program. Unless you think Merc were willing to waste time by running the same tests twice all week.

Nevermind that beating yesterdays time is as pointless as trying to beat JBs from day one as the track would have evolved and gotten quicker etc etc.

The teams would have went in with a set of plans over the 4 days. Merc would have re-wrote them on Tuesday and again on Wedensday. Come Thursday and Friday they would have singing off a hymn sheet written before the cars hit the track.

Testing at this stage is about learning the car. Pretty sure Lewis even said himself it was about what changes did what. Not about beating your team mate. That starts in Oz. Thinking he is simply trying to beat Nico's time isn't exactly giving him any credit as a team player now is it?

I highly doubt Hamilton, the pit wall or anyone there was thinking "you know what our plan is for today? We're gunnu put aside all this testing crap, and just belt round the track in hope that we can be the first team to ever get to 150 laps in 1 test".

The teams dont just sit there coming up with ideas on how to 'beat' people in testing just for shits and giggles. They go there with a planned out strategy. Merc were obviously on the backfoot after two crap days, so had to get as many laps in as possible for the next two days.

You'll also notice that both Hamilton and Rosberg didn't set their laps in 1 consecutive run, they came in for a couple of hours multiple times whilst new parts were fitted. Hamilton had a completely different setup today, maybe merc were testing their second setup to see which out of the two gave better long run performance.

I highly doubt Hamilton, the pit wall or anyone there was thinking "you know what our plan is for today? We're gunnu put aside all this testing crap, and just belt round the track in hope that we can be the first team to ever get to 150 laps in 1 test".

The teams dont just sit there coming up with ideas on how to 'beat' people in testing just for shits and giggles. They go there with a planned out strategy. Merc were obviously on the backfoot after two crap days, so had to get as many laps in as possible for the next two days.

You'll also notice that both Hamilton and Rosberg didn't set their laps in 1 consecutive run, they came in for a couple of hours multiple times whilst new parts were fitted. Hamilton had a completely different setup today, maybe merc were testing their second setup to see which out of the two gave better long run performance.

Why would there be a competitive nature to lap count when the total doesn't mean anything? surely if ever the statement "quality not quantity" were relevant its in this situation. Whatever.

pokerman - I haven't looked at the runs for quickness, mostly just consistency. Of the few I had a good look at yesterday and today: Kimi has had some really impressive stints where his times were extremely close over many laps relative to the others, Lewis' times were mostly "in order" on his more consistent runs, meaning they steadily dropped off versus losing a tenth or two here, then going a bit quicker, then a bit slower again, etc, Seb has been good about not wasting time with a change that doesn't work - straight back in for an adjustment it seems, the STR boys have both enjoyed an improved process for setting up the car meaning they are trying more things and the car is responding (there's an almost regularity to the intervals between runs, and then a nice consistent one before the next big break), and since all three FI drivers have been able to get up to speed in a reasonable window I'd say that car is user friendly. I didn't look hard enough at any others to draw any basic conclusions.

Johnston you know as much about Merc's programmes and Lewis' test plans as I do. Which is to say nothing at all.

Well do you think their program was to test or to see who could do more and fastest laps?

Especially considering this is the first test and is traditionally used for reliability and experimentation?

Honestly I don't know. Only the team does. They wanted as much laps done as possible on the last two days to make up for lost time on the first two days though. Merc seemed to like going for the glory run in testing last year too.

They have very strict test programs and deltas are set to produce the best results. The driver will have 0 say on the number of laps and the pace, but will provide feedback on the car and then the program may be adjusted.

Somewhere in Hamiltons mind he may of thought I will take an opportunity on this particular part of the program to see if I can out pace Nico - but the likelihood of driving on different days and in different conditions pretty much negates any validity on the result.

Johnston you know as much about Merc's programmes and Lewis' test plans as I do. Which is to say nothing at all.

Well do you think their program was to test or to see who could do more and fastest laps?

Especially considering this is the first test and is traditionally used for reliability and experimentation?

Honestly I don't know. Only the team does. They wanted as much laps done as possible on the last two days to make up for lost time on the first two days though. Merc seemed to like going for the glory run in testing last year too.

well correct me if i'm wrong but in the Jerez test for 2012 i'm sure Merc used their 2011 car

also as others have stated, if they were merely going to pound round for as many laps as possible, with no testing programs, why were there periods of time when they were in the garage for 2 hours+ experimenting with different parts and altering the car?

Johnston you know as much about Merc's programmes and Lewis' test plans as I do. Which is to say nothing at all.

Well do you think their program was to test or to see who could do more and fastest laps?

Especially considering this is the first test and is traditionally used for reliability and experimentation?

Honestly I don't know. Only the team does. They wanted as much laps done as possible on the last two days to make up for lost time on the first two days though. Merc seemed to like going for the glory run in testing last year too.

well correct me if i'm wrong but in the Jerez test for 2012 i'm sure Merc used their 2011 car

also as others have stated, if they were merely going to pound round for as many laps as possible, with no testing programs, why were there periods of time when they were in the garage for 2 hours+ experimenting with different parts and altering the car?

As far as we could see , Mercedes & Lewis tested today different set ups,different rear end with DRD, compared the 2 frontwings. Lewis run both the old & the new,

The teams are not trying to set fast laps or do as many as they can. The only reason the two merc guys did alot over the last two days is that they lost time on the first two days and were just trying to complete the programme.

Testing is not a competition it's about first seeing how the car handles compared to simulations, then how it works the tryres and then how it reacts to changes, how it is on long runs / quick laps etc.. And what is the best set up etc .. The drivers realise this and are more concerned with sorting the car out rather than being quickest or doing most laps.

On a side note I have a feeling massa did that fast lap as he was tiddled with doing the donkey work. He looked and sounded real tiddled off

Johnston you know as much about Merc's programmes and Lewis' test plans as I do. Which is to say nothing at all.

Well do you think their program was to test or to see who could do more and fastest laps?

Especially considering this is the first test and is traditionally used for reliability and experimentation?

Honestly I don't know. Only the team does. They wanted as much laps done as possible on the last two days to make up for lost time on the first two days though. Merc seemed to like going for the glory run in testing last year too.

well correct me if i'm wrong but in the Jerez test for 2012 i'm sure Merc used their 2011 car

also as others have stated, if they were merely going to pound round for as many laps as possible, with no testing programs, why were there periods of time when they were in the garage for 2 hours+ experimenting with different parts and altering the car?

If people don't have inside knowledge then people on here are just speculating on nothing but an uninformed opinion based on no logical facts, unless of course they can show the data to back it up from within the teams...

So many things would of been different, fuel load, tyres, duct, engine settings, set-up adjustments, part tweaks etc etc, not to mention a different program the driver could of been on in terms of what they are testing (Like general function of parts, reliability etc)

what I've taken from the timesheets are that Bianchi is much faster than Diresta and Rossiter, and Guiterez is much faster than the Hulk. But of course, I dunno if they were all testing different stuff but the rest of the drivers were pretty close to their teammates is what I mean.

According to most of the opinions here, it looks as if it was a stretch on the soft tires, to see how fast would they degrade But then again, who knows...overall, Ferrari have received relatively good reviews.

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Let's lighten up a bit, after all this is a forum, where everybody is more or less ignorant/armchair pundit. I guess Brawn or Newey could tell us real hard facts, but since they're not on this forum, all we can do is beat around the bush. Live and let live...